Chapter 40 Ivy
There are exactly three acceptable responses to sleeping with your best friend: ice cream, crying, or consulting your slightly unhinged grandmother. Since it's barely noon and I've already stress-eaten half a pint of Ben & Jerry's while sobbing into Salem's fur, I'm going with option three.
I still can't believe I said those things to him.
A quick glance at the rearview mirror confirms it: full-blown woman on the edge vibes.
My hair's in what could generously be called a messy bun, but is really more of a bird's nest, and I'm pretty sure this shirt is on backwards.
Not that it matters, because my aura most likely looks like a Jackson Pollock painting right now anyway.
Maybe Caleb was right. Maybe it is all just bullshit I tell myself to feel special.
The drive to Brookside Haven usually takes twenty minutes.
Today it takes twenty-eight because I looped back three times.
Once for forgetting my phone (what if he calls?), once for remembering I don't actually want him to call (do I?), and once because I blew past the exit while aggressively singing along to ‘Silver Springs' (which, okay, maybe not the most accurate song choice, but the energy felt right).
"You've got this," I mutter, gripping the steering wheel like it's personally responsible for my life choices. "Just breathe. Center yourself. Find your—HOLY SHIT!" I swerve to avoid what turns out to be a perfectly innocent mailbox.
A horn blares as I accidentally cut off an ancient Volvo, and I wave apologetically, though it looks more like a spasm given how tightly I'm clutching the wheel. The woman just shakes her head with a scowl.
Was he right though? The thought sneaks in before I can stop it.
Am I delusional? Following signs that don't mean anything?
And worse—am I the kind of person who turns vicious the second someone challenges what I believe?
Sweet girls don't weaponize someone's deepest fears.
I told him he was nothing. What kind of person says that to someone they love?
Brookside Haven appears ahead like a beacon of hope, or at least a beacon of elderly wisdom and potentially inappropriate advice. I take the turn into the parking lot a little too sharply, definitely not because I'm distracted by last night's memories, and—
THUNK
"Whoops!"
The curb catches my front tire with a crunch that makes me wince. Amelia's voice immediately pops into my head: "Hot girls hit curbs, babe."
A laugh breaks loose before I can hold it in, but it twists into something dangerously close to a sob. Amelia's going to take one look at me and see everything. And the others? I have no idea what I'll say. How do you shrink something like this into something small enough to survive?
But that's why I'm here. Because if anyone knows how to navigate a cosmic mess of epic proportions, it's the woman who once sage-cleansed an entire bingo hall claiming the energy was blocking her winning numbers.
Since Grams moved in three years ago, she's transformed this quiet senior living facility into what the residents now affectionately call The Mystical Mansion. Just last month, she hosted a full moon skinny-dipping ceremony that nearly sent the night security guard into cardiac arrest.
Grams will understand. I need a way to stop loving a person who never shows up the way I do. I need to hear it wasn't all in my head. Because I've spent years covering for him, brushing off the letdowns.
And then came last night.
His words still echo, sharp enough to make my eyes sting. That's the thing about Caleb, he always finds the softest target when he's scared. Always turns the most important things into punchlines.
And I let him.
God, I let him get away with it for years.
At least Grams will have tea. And a solution that involves either some new ritual she found, or hexing Caleb's car. Though after what I said to him, maybe I'm the one who needs hexing.
Whatever it is, it's better than option four—calling him and pretending last night never happened. Because it did. And no amount of crystal healing or full moon magic can erase the moment I finally saw what everyone else has known for years.
I don't know what stings more. That he showed me they were right, or that I spent so long convincing myself they were wrong.
I sign in at the front desk, exchanging pleasantries with Belinda, who's worked here since Grams moved in. She doesn't even bother checking my ID anymore.
"Your grandmother's in her apartment. Or was, twenty minutes ago.
Knowing Eliza, she's probably already started three new projects.
" She lowers her voice, conspiratorial. "We're still recovering from her impromptu tantric breathing workshop last weekend.
Had to remind her that, while we encourage social activities, some energy work is best kept to private sessions.
" She winks. "But between you and me, I haven't seen the bridge club this energized in years. "
The third-floor hallway smells like a combination of patchouli, and what Grams swears is "sacred smoke," but management keeps insisting is against fire code. Music drifts from her apartment and the door is wide open.
Her place is a riot of color and controlled chaos—tapestries covering every wall, crystals catching sunlight and throwing rainbow patterns across the ceiling, herbs drying on copper racks that her partner George installed "under protest and only because I love you."
I find her in the middle of her living room, barefoot in a flowing emerald caftan, silver hair falling in wild waves down her back.
"My spirit guides told me you were coming," she announces, not turning around. "Also, George texted that he saw you in the parking lot hitting that curb. Again."
The casual way she mentions spirit guides like other people mention the weather is so perfectly her.
When I was eight, and kids at school said I was weird for reading fairy tales about real witches, Grams told me the problem wasn't that I believed in magic, it was that they'd forgotten how.
She's never once made me feel like I needed to dim myself down for other people's comfort.
Until today, I'd forgotten what it felt like to question that.
"I just wanted to visit and see—" She spins around, bangles jangling a sharp warning.
"Oh, Pixie." Her face softens instantly. "That bad, huh?"
The nickname hits different today. She's called me that since I was four and insisted I could talk to garden fairies.
Back then, her belief in my magic felt like the only thing keeping me tethered to who I was.
Now I wonder if she was just enabling a lonely kid's fantasy.
And the moment I see her concerned expression, surrounded by the familiar scent of essential oils and unconditional love, the tears come.
"Did someone die? Join a cult?" She asks, already pulling me into a hug. "Not sure which would be worse."
I shake my head against her shoulder.
"Ivy," she pulls back, holding me at arms' length. "Please tell me you didn't sign up for that crystal MLM. I taught you better than that."
"I slept with Caleb."
"Oh, thank the goddess." She relaxes. "That we can fix. Probably without having to hex anyone, though I'm not making any promises. Come on, I just got a new batch of that tea George says is 'not FDA approved' but works wonders for heartache."
And somehow, just like that, I know everything might eventually be okay.